No presentations made at first Capital Projects Sales Tax Commission public hearing

A six-member panel charged with reviewing capital projects to include in a proposed 1-percent sales tax heard no presentations during its first scheduled public hearing Monday in Beaufort.

The Beaufort County Capital Projects Sales Tax Commission is scheduled to receive presentations from county staff and each of the county’s municipalities, as well as the general public, over the next two months.

The commission will whittle down the list of proposed projects, which includes roads, bridges and other infrastructure improvements. If it does so on time, County Council would vote on including the projects in a referendum for voters to decide on in November.

But only a handful of people attended Monday’s public hearing — the first of four currently scheduled — and no one came forward to make an extensive case for a project.

“I’m a little stunned,” commission vice-chair Scott Richardson of Hilton Head Island said. “I know all the (local governments) have a list of items they’d like us to take a look at, and we crammed our schedule in to have as many meetings as possible, so we could see these things.”

According to county attorney Josh Gruber, if the commission determines a referendum can be placed on the ballot and compiles a list of items, it must forward the ballot language to County Council for approval no later the end of June.

Council would then need three readings and additional public hearings to approve the referendum and would need to submit the language to the county board of elections and voter registration by Aug. 15 for it to appear on the ballot, Gruber said.

Faced with a small window of time, commissioners were disappointed with the lack of attendance Monday.

“It’s a little dismaying that 25 percent of the time we’ve scheduled to get these ideas rolled into one package is gone, and we haven’t heard from anyone,” commissioner Mike Covert of Bluffton said. “I’d rather not have to hear from everyone at the very final minute.”

If the commission determines a referendum can be held, it must set the parameters on how long the sales tax would last and whether the projects should be funded before they begin or if the county would be allowed to borrow for them. If passed, the tax would expire after a certain number of years — anywhere from two to eight in two-year increments — or after the projects are fully paid for.

Voters approved a capital project sales tax in 2006 that helped fund road improvements, such as the widening of U.S. 278 and S.C. 170 in southern Beaufort County. The tax has since expired.

Gruber said Monday during the collection period for previously approved tax, the county raked in about $30 million annually, and that figure would likely be the same if voters OK the tax this year.

The commission has three more public hearings scheduled: Monday at the Bluffton Library, May 12 at Whale Branch Early College High School and May 19 in the Hilton Head Island Town Council chambers. Each of those meetings begins at 6:30 p.m.

County administrator Gary Kubic said he and other county officials would be making thorough presentations on the top priorities from the county’s capital improvement needs list, and he expects the same from the towns of Bluffton, Hilton Head Island and Port Royal, as well as the city of Beaufort.

“I’m a little disappointed we didn’t have more people here tonight, but once we start throwing projects out there that will have associated pros and cons for citizens to hear themselves, I think we’ll see a lot more participation,” Kubic said. “As for the county’s list, we’ve got a lot of things to present that we think could help from an economic development perspective.”

The commission has established a set of criteria it will use to vet the project proposals it hears. Those include: whether a project can be funded by another source of money, whether the project will generate revenue, what its associated maintenance and personnel costs are, whether the project will create jobs, whether it will help the county as a whole, and whether a cost-benefit study has been done on the project.